


between the lines of fear and blame

by homewrecker



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Eventual Smut, I'll add more as we go, M/M, Minor Corey Bryant/Mason Hewitt, Minor Scott McCall/Malia Tate, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, if needed, up until the end of 6b
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 05:45:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16423550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homewrecker/pseuds/homewrecker
Summary: It started with subtle things.He started asking Mason to hang out less. Minor annoyances would have him struggling to reel his claws back in. He couldn’t focus while playing lacrosse. And his incompetence both as a friend and as a captain only made him more angry.But that was all that was there. Anger.





	between the lines of fear and blame

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys, I lost interest in my last fic because I'm a hoe for super slow burn angst. I want my future chapters to be at least triple this length, but I wanted to put the first little part up for an intro....  
> Remember to point out any errors if you catch them!!!

Liam ripped his helmet off and snapped his lacrosse stick clean in half as Corey easily stopped yet another one of his shots at the goal.

“Fuck this,” he growled as he slammed his equipment on the ground headed for the locker room.

Mason looked worried from where he was sitting watching the two boys practice. He started to rise as Liam stormed by, but one glare from the beta had him falling back into his seat.

Liam reached the locker room and did a beeline for the showers.

He turned one on its coldest setting and stepped under, fully clothed, hoping the icy water would work against the burning anger coursing through him.

He didn’t know what was wrong. Ever since the war ended… he’d been _off._

At first he chalked it up to Scott being gone, but even with the distance he could feel the comforting tug of the pack bond strong in his chest. Plus, Scott made sure to text him every morning and afternoon, and then FaceTime every night. It was a bit ridiculous, if he was being honest, but he would never tell that to Scott.

So with the relationship with his alpha all set, he had no idea what was making him feel this way.

It started about a week after they defeated Monroe.

That first week was absolute chaos as everyone tried to pick up the scattered pieces of Beacon Hills and process exactly what had happened. It was tense and awkward among the community. Normal people had literally hunted their own neighbors down with automatic weapons, but now that the Anukite was gone, they had nothing to rationalize their irrational behavior.

But the people of Beacon Hills were old pros at pretending insane things didn’t happen. So everything basically went back to normal. There was now just an underlying vibe of _knowing_ that stretched across the town.

Once that fake normalcy had settled in and Liam had finally processed everything, he was able to relax a bit and focus on himself.

But he also started changing.

It started with subtle things.

He started asking Mason to hang out less. Minor annoyances would have him struggling to reel his claws back in. He couldn’t focus while playing lacrosse. And his incompetence both as a friend and as a captain only made him more angry.

But that was all that was there. Anger.

It had almost been a month since the war ended and that’s all he felt anymore.

And when the void in his chest wasn’t filled with anger, he just felt empty.

Mason and Corey noticed pretty early on that something was wrong. They tried to get Liam to spend time with them and talk about it… except Liam didn’t have any answers. He honestly wished he did. He felt like he did as a kid when he was struggling with his IED but had yet to be diagnosed— uncontrollable and lost.

But even when he was human, he didn’t have trouble with lacrosse. It came naturally to him. He never had any issue with his skill, just with his anger. And when his lawless anger made him feel like a failure, his stellar lacrosse performance was the only thing that kept the self-loathing at bay. But he didn’t have that anymore.

“Liam, _stop_!”

Liam snapped out of his reverie and blinked through the freezing water to look at Mason. He followed his best friend’s concerned gaze down to his right fist which was bleeding and frozen mid-punch in front of a larger hole in the cement shower wall.

Liam pulled his hand under the water with him and watched the blood wash down the drain, until the only evidence of his episode was the destroyed wall.

Mason sighed and walked over to turn the shower off while Corey located Liam’s locker to grab some dry clothes and a towel.

“Thanks,” Liam whispered to the both of them as he peeled off his soaked practice clothes. He quickly dried off before tugging the clean clothes over his cold, damp skin.

He noticed that one of the other boys had brought his equipment in and groaned when he saw the stick snapped in half.

His mom was gonna be pissed about having to buy him a new one. He broke his sticks pretty often, and they did not come cheap. He would have to consider asking David for the money and begging him to keep it a secret from his mom… It was a tactic that had worked before.

Liam shoved the the equipment into his locker and laid his wet clothes out on a bench before the three boys headed out of the school and made their way home.

—-

Liam quietly shut the door behind him as he entered the house. He could hear his parents moving around in the kitchen and he could smell what seemed to be chicken and rice cooking. He made it to the stairs without being noticed and called out a quick “Hi Mom! Hi Dad,” before taking the stairs two at a time to his room.

His parents had also noticed early on that Liam had been becoming more withdrawn and agitated. At first, they had tried their hardest to get Liam to talk about what was wrong. They didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t know, which was fair, given that he would’ve said the same thing even if he _did_ know.

Luckily, they had started to lay off of him. But Liam couldn’t stand the worried glances that they would send them over dinner or the strong scent of their concern, so he started coming home and going straight to his room for the night. He didn’t have much of an appetite lately, anyway.  He felt bad because he knew that they had every right to be worried, but that didn’t make their behavior any less suffocating.

Liam entered his room and went straight to the conjoined bathroom to take a real shower. This time he put the water on a normal temperature setting and waited for it to heat up all the way before stepping in.

He quickly washed his hair and started to rub soap along his body. His hands reached lower on his stomach before he changed course and dug his fingers into his sore shoulder muscles that had yet to finish healing from the amount of shots he took at Corey. For years, this had been the part of his shower routine where he jerked off.

But that was another thing that changed in the past month. His sex drive seemed to have vanished.

He tried to fix it. He watched all different kinds of porn, but he just wasn’t interested in any of it. The most attractive girls, and even some guys, would constantly flirt with him at school and it just didn’t make him feel anything anymore.

He finished up in the shower and put on some pajamas before hopping into bed. It was only 8 o’clock, but his little episode in the locker room had completely exhausted him.

His eyes were just falling closed when he was suddenly jolted awake by the shrill ring of the FaceTime ringtone.

He couldn’t even be that annoyed when he answered to see Scott’s warm smile on his iPhone screen. It’s probably impossible to feel annoyed when a literal puppy is smiling at you.

But seeing his Alpha smile on FaceTime always made Liam’s heart tug a little, too. It just reminded him how much he missed the comforting smell of contentment that came with the smile in real life.

“Hi Liam,” Scott greeted loudly from where he seemed to be laying in his dorm bed. Scott tilted the camera down and Malia’s face appeared on screen.

“Sup, Stupid,” she mumbled from where her face was shoved into Scott’s shoulder.

Scott had used his asthma as an excuse to get a single room so he wouldn’t have to explain any awkward werewolf slip-ups. As a result, Malia practically moved into Scott’s UC Davis room after officially canceling her trip to France— despite Peter getting her an insanely expensive apartment in the same area. But Liam figured that someone who lived most of her life as a coyote wouldn’t prefer something so flashy.

“How’s school?” Scott asked, as if school could have drastically changed from when he asked Liam the same question 24 hours before. But it was Beacon Hills, so Liam couldn’t blame him.

“It was fine,” Liam replied. “My grades are okay. Nothing unusual happened.”

Scott nodded and both of them startled as Malia let out a loud sneeze.

“That’s boring,” Malia added offscreen with a sniff. “Tomorrow’s Friday, do you have any plans?”

Liam groaned and rolled his eyes when he remembered that he did, in fact, have plans.

“Yeah, unfortunately. There’s a party tomorrow and Mason guilted me into saying I’ll go.”

Scott gave him a weak smile and shrugged. “Maybe being a normal teenager is just what you need to get you out of this funk.”

Liam sighed. “Maybe. Or maybe not.”

“Or maybe not,” Scott agreed before giving Liam a wide smile. “But I’m coming home to see you this weekend as a surprise!”

Malia’s hand came on screen to smack Scott’s forehead. “It’s not a surprised if you tell him, dummy.”

Scott rubbed his forehead and looked sheepish. “If the party doesn’t work out, just remember you’ll have the rest of the weekend for some much needed Alpha time,” he said, ignoring his girlfriend.

“‘Alpha time?’” Liam snorted. “What exactly is that?”

“We’ll all get naked and run around howling in the Preserve,” Malia’s voice yelled.

“And then we’ll go back to my house with the rest of the pack and cuddle in one big puppy pile,” Scott giggled. _Literal puppy._

Liam laughed and shook his head. “Fine, but only if we order pizza in between. And Derek or Parrish have to come on the run so I’m not a third wheel.”

“Deal,” Scott said in unison with Malia’s voice in the background.

Liam felt a bit lighter after they said their goodbyes and hung up. The FaceTime calls usually had that effect.

He put his phone down and rolled over, hoping that his better mood would follow him into his dreams.

  
  



End file.
